


Why don’t you run from me?

by WaterSeraphim



Category: League of Legends
Genre: Falling In Love, Fluff and Angst, Implied/Referenced Sex, M/M, Memory Loss, Reunions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-09
Updated: 2020-10-09
Packaged: 2021-03-08 02:55:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,682
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26918452
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WaterSeraphim/pseuds/WaterSeraphim
Summary: The years of imprisonment have stolen Aatrox’s memories of Varus from him. The loved they shared  faded away until Aatrox no longer knew Varus’ name. That is, until he runs into a mysterious Darkin in Shurima, one that claims to know him, and reminds him of ivory wings and warm sunlight.
Relationships: Aatrox/Varus (League of Legends)
Comments: 2
Kudos: 46





	Why don’t you run from me?

**Author's Note:**

> I started writing this a whole while ago and never pushed myself to finish it until now. Hooray for sudden bursts of motivation! 
> 
> No beta, mistakes are all my own.

  
  
  


At the end of everything, Aatrox forced himself to remember.

He could not forget so easily. Trapped in the darkness, a breath he could never take was caught in his throat. His eyes did not see, his heart did not beat. He tried to curl his fingers to make sure they were still there, but the muscles did not respond. The world was nothing but emptiness. 

He needed to remember.

_Varus._

Would Aatrox be stuck in this hell for eternity, never to see him again? To feel his flesh and bone give in beneath the pressure of his fingertips? To wrap his wings around him like a shield and hold him in his arms, their chests pulsing to the same rhythm. 

_Varus…_

The shadows hadn’t yet crept upon his face, his beauty was untarnished and wholly awe inspiring. His amber eyes burned golden in the light cast by the setting sun. His dark skin seemed to glow with a radiance that was almost blinding. Aatrox had been caught entranced by him before, his fellow Ascended mocking him for the way he wore his heart so openly. 

_Who was Varus?_

Varus was breathtaking, yet there was something colder there, lurking just beneath the surface. At first Aatrox had connected it to his recent loss, his wife and children had been slain in the very assault that earned him his Ascension. Having remained vigilant to his station rather than flee to defend his home, it was likely that the action condemned his loved ones to their fate. It could not be easy to bear the consequences, regardless of the rewards gained from his loyalty. 

Grief was an easy enough weapon to wield in vengeance. His underlying darkness had been hidden well, but on rare occasions the warmth gave way to a frigid chill that unsettled even the most seasoned god-warriors. His passion was almost _beyond_ passion, edging into the territory of zealotry. He cut down Icathians with fervor, every arrow drawn a wordless prayer, every death a blessing. 

He had not been among the ranks of the Ascended Host for long, yet his skill was unquestioned, and almost unmatched beyond Aatrox himself and a few of his most fearsome allies. It was that skill that had drawn Aatrox to him in the first place. Varus’ enemies became nothing but mere pincushions for his swarm of arrows. He killed with deadly efficiency, aiming for vital points with ease, but when victory was assured his accuracy fled in the wake of violence. Aatrox had seen the bodies, twenty arrows protruding from their limbs. It wouldn’t kill quickly, no, the Icathians drained until the loss of blood stopped their hearts. 

As the war went on, the tireless attraction Aatrox had felt to him had only grown more intense. He found himself looking for the archer amid the battlefield even when his presence was required elsewhere. In the quiet lull between the fighting his mind could not help but wander. Aatrox was not so cowardly to flee in the face of something as trivial as this, but Varus was surely grieving still. Aatrox could not press this desire upon him so tactlessly. He wasn’t so certain that Varus even knew him beyond his glory, the name of Aatrox meant many things, and not all of them belonged to him. 

For years Aatrox longed after Varus, but to him they felt like minutes. Time flowed differently when so enraptured by another. Slowly Varus began to place trust in him, seeking him out on the battlefield—and then off of it. Aatrox was afraid of pushing him away, he kept the emotions contained behind a glass wall and Varus did not become such a skilled marksman by turning a blind eye to the world around him. 

But then Varus spoke to him one night, the stars reflected in his eyes. A battle with the wretched void monsters was looming on the horizon, and all of the Sunborn were feeling a sense of dread lingering in their hearts. Aatrox would lead many of them to their deaths, possibly even his own. At the forefront of the fighting the odds for his survival were settling on _unlikely_. 

Varus caught him as he made to go prepare with the other generals, his fingers digging into Aatrox’s wrist hard enough to leave crescent-shaped impressions in his skin. His amber eyes held fear so heavy it made Aatrox want to choke. 

_“Don’t go. Aatrox. I don’t… I don’t want to be alone again.”_

Aatrox had faltered, ready to ask, _again?_ He already knew the answer, _again_ meant the family Varus left behind in order to be where he stood. _Again_ meant someone he cared deeply for never returning to him. Varus had only told Aatrox the small things, how his wife’s arms were hard with muscle from the hard work she did in the fields. Their youngest loved to sing, always picking up new songs from the market traders. Their home was small, but well lived in, it’s walls echoed with generations of happiness.

Varus never spoke of what happened. Aatrox didn’t need to hear it to know, he could see the rage catching in his eyes, the tightening of his voice. His deft fingers clutched at the locket strung around his throat like letting go meant saying goodbye forever. 

Instead Aatrox had settled on a solemn, “ _I must.”_

Varus had become even more displeased. His knuckles around his locket were growing pale. “ _I said the same thing once. I must, it is my duty. I gave my word, and in doing so, killed those I loved more than anything in the world. Aatrox, please don’t do this.”_

_“You will be joining the Host on the battlefield, but you want me to stay behind? Don’t you think I worry for you as well, Varus? That I would enjoy seeing you hurt or worse?”_

There were words storming in Varus’ head, ones of logic and heated retaliation. In the end he spoke none of them, begrudgingly accepting Aatrox’s legendary stubbornness. _“Then we will both be fools and die together.”_

_“I would prefer to see you again after this battle.”_

_“As would I, Aatrox,”_ Varus responded in a hushed whisper. His voice had always been quiet as death, but now it was spoken with the intimacy of a lover. He squared his shoulders, lifting his head to meet Aatrox’s gaze with a demand of his own. _“Spend the night with me.”_

Aatrox had sensed that this moment was coming, but it still arrived with such an unexpected intensity. His divine heart skipped in his chest like he was once again young and in love for the first time in his life. _“You wish for me to lie with you?”_

“ _I do. I have wished for it a long time.”_ Varus nodded, cupping Aatrox’s strong jaw with a gentle hand. His feet seemed to long to close the distance between them, his eyes now heavy and dark. 

Aatrox had done his musings over how Varus would be if he had ever succeeded in sharing a night with him. His ferocity was attractive on the battlefield, and imagining how it would translate to more carnal activities was enough to make Aatrox flustered. But when Varus stripped his clothes and allowed Aatrox to claim his body there was a vulnerability he had not expected, a hopeful look of longing in his eyes. Aatrox brushed his hair from his face and kissed him softly, again and again. 

When it was over he had held Varus tight in his arms, both of them hoping that this love would distract them from the nightmare of tomorrow. It only succeeded marginally, Aatrox never succumbed to the gift of sleep, but eventually Varus had dozed off, his head resting on Aatrox’s chest and their fingers intertwined. 

When the sun began to rise over Shurima, Aatrox memorized the way the light danced across Varus’ skin. He prayed that he would see it a thousand more times, that he would spend eternity with this man by his side. 

  
  


Fate was cruel.

  
  


Why had he left—no—they had been separated over the course of the wars. How could Aatrox forget? The night Varus had said goodbye, when he promised to find him again? “ _We have more blood to spill together._ ” His words held little affection, but his voice wavered with emotion, his eyes filled with tears of crimson. Their bodies had begun to twist into something unholy, to reflect the evilness growing in their hearts. It was getting harder to remember his light when all Aatrox knew was the emptiness, when Varus’ hatred and lust for vengeance corrupted his heart into something worse. 

What color were his eyes again? The memory slipped through his hands like grains of sand. The pieces were blown away in the wind and lost forever to the flow of time. He screamed, tearing the skin from his face, scraping away at the muscle beneath. It wasn’t his own, it hadn’t been in ages. A mockery of a body stitched together by countless atrocities. 

Varus was a god-warrior, then he was Aatrox’s lover, then _Darkin._ He was the best archer Aatrox had ever met, he lost his family in the war against Icathia. He was beautiful, his dark features glowed in the sunlight, he was-

Was he beautiful? Varus? Aatrox felt dread settle into his stomach. Could he remember Varus’ face? It had been special to him, hadn’t it? The shape was growing abstract in Aatrox’s mind, his eyes vague, his nose less defined. The image was fading until it was nothing more than an impression. He needed to remember every piece of him. He didn’t want to forget. Losing Varus meant losing himself. Aatrox had been in love with him, they would hold each other close, Aatrox shielded him with his wings. Varus used to tuck his long hair behind his ears to keep it from falling into his eyes. Even as Aatrox and the others grew more grotesque and monstrous, Varus remained disarmingly beautiful. 

Varus.

Aatrox was losing himself. Slowy, piece by piece he was being destroyed until all that was left was hatred burning in his chest and the blood upon his blade. Losing memories was not a painless fall, they did not go gently or quietly into the darkness. Aatrox could feel something festering within him, eating away at all the hope it could find. Of course, it went for _him_ first. He was the one, the only one, and now Aatrox couldn’t remember his name. He could not recall a single detail about him, only that he was _someone_ , and that Aatrox had loved him. Each new host meant losing parts that made him whole, but imprisonment was slow and torturous suffocation. His body had been caged inside a space made to hold fractions of his size. The loneliness ate away at him, he could not wait hundreds of years for another fool to wield his blade. 

In the end, all options before him led to suffering. 

  
  
  
  
  


* * *

In Shurima’s now barren wastes he found a Darkin surrounded by the bleeding corpses of mortals. Their limbs had been stuck full of arrows. It reminded Aatrox of something, a glimpse of the past flitted across his mind, of battlefields and white feathers, before it disappeared again. 

He had not seen another Darkin in centuries, believing that the rest of his brothers and sisters had all perished when the mortals came for them. If only they had all been as lucky. His curiosity took hold of him, who was this Darkin? 

“Aatrox,” the Darkin gasped, the breath catching in his throat making him sound all the more broken. It was not the tremble of terror Aatrox had grown comfortable with. How long had it been since someone had spoken to him with anything but fear?

_It knows our name…?_

There is something like tragedy in his disposition but not that of defeat or failure, but more akin to heartbreak. A mother weeping over her daughter’s mutilated corpse, a lover kissing the brow of their dead spouse, not aware of the metallic taste of blood upon their tongue. 

“Aatrox.” The Darkin said again with more assertiveness as if he was convincing himself of its validity. 

He felt familiar, like the scent of sand, or the warmth of the sun upon the skin that he hadn’t had in centuries. Aatrox was becoming well acquainted with that uncomfortable sensation of finding something his imprisonment had caused him to forget. This one was worse than the others somehow. His chest was aching, his legs not quite under his own control. It was just a man, or perhaps it was the whole world. 

Aatrox did not want to attack him, the mere idea was an affront upon his mind. He’d never come across someone that made him hesitate. His release was waiting for him at the end of humanity. This suffering was a cage he was desperately trying to free himself from. Yet, he did not raise his sword. Darkin or not, he shed no tears for his once-brothers and sisters in arms. Their loyalties had long since been severed as the years drew on and new nations rose and fell around them. 

“Aatrox.” This was becoming tiring. He should move on, escape this onslaught of emotions. 

“My name is not a toy for your amusement, brother,” Aatrox’s voice echoed throughout the desert. The power in his tone gave the painfully familiar man pause.

“Brother?” The Darkin’s form visibly crumbled like the ruins of the empire they once served. His features were difficult to discern from such a distance, but Aatrox could still tell he was very much distressed. “You have forgotten me. I dreaded this moment, I knew it would be so, yet I tried to convince myself…” the man sighed, and lifted his weapon into the air. Not to knock an arrow, but to bring attention to its existence. A bow, a small thing, twisted and gnarled and curving from him like an extension of his body. It hummed with the unnatural energy of a Darkin’s magic. “You knew me, once.”

“I knew many, once.”

“I was not like the others,” the Darkin protested. “I am—was more important than that. My blood has mixed with yours, my heart, my essence…” he trailed off. 

“Heart? I lost my heart long ago.“ And yet there was something itching at him: the bow. Aatrox had seen it before in the brief moments of clarity before the darkness returned to his mind. 

“And I have kept it with me, I have never forgotten you, my angel. Even when I was trapped in that forsaken well, I dreamt of you. If you have forgotten me, so be it, then I will help you remember.” 

Aatrox could not fathom how one could gaze upon his mangled form and see an angel. His wings were nothing more than blood and decay. Unlike him, this Darkin was beautiful with his long white hair, and a body of flesh and sculpted muscle. Aatrox wanted to run his fingers through those pale tresses, to tuck the stray strands behind his ears. He didn’t know why the urge was so compelling. 

“What did they call you?”

“Varus, but you, Aatrox, you called me your ‘heart’. There is a cruel irony to that, if you had lost me as you claim,” he laughed dryly. 

_Varus. My heart._

“You… you. I knew you, that name,” Aatrox frowned. He was so close, he could feel his senses fighting to recollect what they once had. The memories just on the edge of his mind. 

“We fought together for decades, loved each other for more. I swore to stand by you always, but I failed, I broke my oath, and now I’ve lost you,” Varus’ voice trembled with emotion that Aatrox had never seen in a Darkin before. “You’re gone, and yet you stand right in front of me. _It hurts_.” 

“I’m sorry,” Aatrox said, and he meant it. Seeing the Darkin so upset was hurting him inside as well. It made him angry, his blade hungered for violence but Varus had already slain the humans, so the desire was left to fester instead. 

“This ache is not your doing, don’t apologize for it.” Varus cracked a pained smile. “Seeing you brings me more than enough joy.” 

If he was happy, Varus was doing a poor job at showing it even for a Darkin. His words did nothing to satisfy Aatrox’s conflicted feelings. He typically reveled in the agony of others, but he found no pleasure in this. 

“I’m close, I can feel the memories trapped somewhere inside me. Tell me, Varus! Help me break them open! I can’t suffer with this lifeless existence any longer.” Aatrox’s clawed hand shook with frustration. He wanted to grab the tiny Darkin and take the answers out of him. 

“Impatient as always,” Varus chuckled.

Varus told him everything, from his ascension to their final parting. He wasted no expense on the details, speaking for hours on end. The blazing sun had set long. Aatrox was enraptured by their story, falling in love with the man all over again. Each time Varus slowed down Aatrox found something else to add, old memories blossoming back into existence. Some that even Varus had forgotten. 

As reunions went all, this one was far less glamorous than the scene he had dreamt for millennia. His body did not swell with a sudden surge of life, mending his corrupted flesh into something _better_. His wings did not sprout ivory feathers at the sight of his long last beloved. Varus did not come rushing to him with arms outstretched, in reality he appeared to be rather scared. As vulnerable as their first night together, a hesitance in his demeanor. The world continued as it always had, with its familiar stubbornness. 

The first thing that Aatrox truly noticed with all his memories returned was how small Varus really was. He had always been the runt of the Ascended Host, but now Aatrox was capable of holding him within the confines of his hand. It would be all too easy to unintentionally crush his fragile body. What was he thinking, taking such an unstable form? How could Aatrox touch him like this, without fear of hurting him? How could he show Varus the agonies he’d endured without him by his side? How could he give him the love he deserved? They could not make love again like this!

Aatrox dropped to his knees, the earth shook beneath him, sand rising in clouds from the impact. His sword fell along with him, unarmed, vulnerable. He wanted to get closer, to see Varus without so much distance between them. 

“The others are scared of you, they don’t want me to get closer.”

“Others?”

“My hosts, they are fighting me. They often do,” Varus’ shoulders slumped. He thumped himself in the chest, as if he was reprimanding the stubborn souls within his body. “It is difficult to fulfill my goals without them throwing a _fit_. I could not find my sister, but this- you are a much greater discovery in this barren land. Aatrox… I’ve missed you so much.” 

“Why have you taken such a foolish host, Varus? What were you thinking!?” Why hadn’t he slain the humans?

  
  


“I do not seek power, I merely want vengeance for us Darkin. A larger body does not improve my aim, nor does it make my arrows sharper. This is all I need.”

“You are still weakened from your imprisonment,” Aatrox guessed aloud, finding no other explanation for his hosts’ continued existences. “I could help you slay the humans, if you need it.”

“No, this will suffice for now. I confess that I’m growing somewhat attached to them…” Varus looked away, embarrassed. “We argue often, but in the calm between it’s nice to have someone to speak to.”

“I lost myself to madness from loneliness, maybe it would be good for you to have company,” Aatrox muttered. He was not exactly fond of the idea of Varus sharing his vessel with two other souls. If it was what Varus wanted, Aatrox would not object to it, but he still found it concerning.

“They will be your company too, now that I found you you’re going to have a hard time getting rid of me.”

“What if they don’t like me?”

“They’ll learn to deal with it,” Varus stated more to himself than to Aatrox, like he was already arguing with his hosts again. “Right Valmar?” 

Varus frowned, then nodded, before reverting back to his pleasantly infatuated expression. 

Aatrox finally offered up his massive hand, hoping that Varus would climb into it. Varus’ body shivered, then stopped. Moments passed in silence, a war happening somewhere inside Varus’ mind between him and the humans again. 

“Come! Please, I wish to hold him again,” Aatrox pleaded.

Much to his surprise, Varus complied. He used one of Aatrox’s fingers as leverage as he stepped onto his palm. Aatrox lifted him into the air until he was directly before his face. Close enough that he could see every detail. There was no easy way to shower him with affection given their differences in size, but at least he could do this. 

Varus caressed his cheek with his claws before planting a kiss on it. His smile was radiant. Aatrox longed to kiss him in return, passionately, but he feared he might accidentally swallow him whole instead. 

“I’m so glad that I found you, my angel,” Varus said breathlessly before kissing as much of his face that he could reach. 

“What of your humans now, do they not object to all these kisses?” Aatrox laughed. 

“They said they are willing to try, they know how it feels to lose the person they love above all else. They’re still terrified of you, but they also find you quite handsome.” 

“Handsome?” Aatrox parroted in confusion. 

“They’re upset that I told you, they said it was supposed to be a secret,” Varus added with a wink.

  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> Follow me on twitter ~ @Seraphimwater


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